TITLE: One Sorry Son of a Bitch.
AUTHOR: mad martha
DISTRIBUTION: Please forward/archive/whatever.
SPOILERS: Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: V,A
SUMMARY: Mrs. Scully has her say.
DISCLAIMER: "The X Files" and all the characters etc. associated
with it are the property of 20th Century Fox and 1013
Productions. I am not making any profit from this story, and no
infringement is intended.
NOTES: I got my copy of "File 9: Redux" the day before yesterday
(the combined Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II video), devoured it in
one mammoth, awe-struck sitting, and then ... didn't feel
inspired to write. But on the bus home last night, I had this
sudden idea. I hope it works for you readers, but please let me
know what you think.
This occurs after the "one sorry son of a bitch" scene, hence
the title.
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ONE SORRY SON OF A BITCH
By mad martha
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Part 1/1
"You could have been more polite."
They were the first words his mother had spoken since she got
into the car, and Bill Scully jumped. He shot a quick, sideways
glance at her, but she hadn't moved either; she had her arm
propped up against the window and was staring out blindly, her
chin resting on her hand. There was nothing to indicate how she
was feeling, but he'd assumed she was too upset over Dana's
condition to speak. He'd respected that silence.
"I was polite," he said, at length.
"No, you weren't. You were downright rude. I brought you up
better than that."
Always the same tone. Maggie Scully had never needed to
raise her voice in anger; if anything, it got quieter. There
was something remarkable about its quality - that she could
seemingly speak in the same level tone, and yet impart such a
great variation of emotions. Sometimes it became tight and
intense, sometimes mellow, but it was always the same.
But Bill had never mistaken her anger for what it was, and
she was angry now. It gave him a most uncomfortable feeling; he
didn't like being at odds with his mother, because he didn't
know quite how to deal with it. He had fought once or twice
with his father, back when he was a teenager, but that had been
something he knew how to handle - one big blast of noise, and it
was over. With his brother, it had usually ended up out in the
back yard until he had the pest subdued; and with his sisters he
simply stood firm while their anger washed over him.
But not with his mother. She alone had the power to make him
ill at ease. Nevertheless, it wasn't in his nature to back
down. He was *right*.
He shifted in his seat infinitesimally. "What did you expect
me to say to him? "Thanks for all you've done for my sister"?
I'm not wasting my time pretending to that jerk."
He thought she might have glanced at him, but he wasn't sure;
his eyes were on the road.
"I expected you to be polite. You were there to see your
sister and hear what the doctors had to say, not fight with her
partner."
"I didn't fight with him."
"I'm not stupid, Bill Scully, and I wasn't born yesterday.
When I came out of that room, I knew from the look on his face
that you'd said something. I should have known what you were up
to when you left Dana and I; you never could just let it go.
Dana knew too - how do you think that made her feel?"
Bill opened his mouth and shut it again. Anger sparked, and
a strong sense of injustice. "Mom, if Dana wasn't involved with
Fox Mulder, she wouldn't be lying in that hospital bed now!
>From the moment she started working with him, he's brought her
and our family nothing but grief. Melissa is *dead* because of
him - "
"Missy is dead because she was in the wrong place at the
wrong time," Maggie interrupted sharply. "And the men who
killed her intended to kill Dana - "
"Yeah, thanks to her involvement with this guy," Bill leapt
in. "And what difference does it make, in the end? She's going
to be dead anyway in a matter of days! All because she *had* to
work with Fox Mulder."
"Dana makes her own choices, Bill. She's a grown woman; she
knew the risks when she went into this. It's her life and her
decision."
"Yeah, I seem to remember her using that argument on Dad when
she joined the FBI," he retorted. "If she'd listened to him
then, none of this would have happened. But no! She had to go
her own way just to spite him, and look what's come of it."
Maggie leaned back against the head-rest wearily. "None of
which is Fox's fault. She was assigned to work with him. What
kind of a partner would she be, what kind of an agent, if she
picked and chose what cases she would investigate because she
*might* get hurt?"
"Oh, come on, Mom! She didn't have to work with him - she
could have transferred away from that nutcase any time in the
last four years, and you know it."
"But she *didn't*," Maggie pointed out curtly. "Her choice."
"He could have had her transferred!" Bill said angrily.
"He's her department head; he knew what kind of risks he was
exposing her to, and if he cared for her half as much as you
keep telling me he does, he would have done it. But the truth
is he doesn't care - all he cares about are his Goddamned
conspiracies and little green men, and he doesn't give a damn
about who gets caught in the crossfire."
"Oh Bill, shut up," Maggie sighed, closing her eyes. "You
don't know the first thing about him."
"I don't need to. I can tell what kind of a guy he is. What
I can't get over is him visiting Dana in hospital like an old
friend, when he was the one who put her there in the first
place! I can't believe he's got the nerve to look her in the
face after all he's done to her."
Maggie's eyes opened briefly as she studied her son's face;
then they closed again and she turned her head away. "Has it
occurred to you," she said quietly, "that your sister might
actually have wanted him there?"
Bill let out a spurt of mirthless laughter. "You know,
that's the worst part of this," he said conversationally. "It's
.... it's degrading to watch Dana, who I was always thought was a
sensible woman, behaving like an abused wife who goes crawling
back to her husband every time he apologises for beating her.
For Christ's sake, Mom! How can you stand by and watch this
happening? All he has to do is turn on the charm, turn on the
guilt, and she rolls over in front of him."
"I can't talk to you!" Maggie snapped. "You don't know the
first thing about your sister if you can say that! And you
certainly know nothing about Fox Mulder."
"You're right," Bill agreed coolly, "so maybe you can explain
it to me. Maybe you can explain what my smart little sister
finds worth bothering about in him, because I sure as hell can't
see it."
Maggie's eyes opened again, raking over him briefly. "Maybe
it's because he respects her."
Bill looked at her speechlessly. "You have *got* to be
kidding me," he managed after a moment.
Something akin to disgust flickered in Maggie's eyes, but it
was gone before he noticed it. "He respects her ability to know
her own mind, Bill. He respects her enough to let her make her
own decisions, to know her own limits. He respects her enough
to let her be her own person. And he respects her
intelligence."
He was perceptive enough to catch the tiny note of censure in
his mother's voice, and was goaded by it. "Oh, and I don't?"
"No," she replied flatly. "That was always your problem,
with Dana *and* Melissa. You were always so convinced that you
knew best what was good for them, that you never listened to
what they were saying."
Bill went slightly pale. "I always respected their
intelligence. I was proud of both of them - "
"You might have been proud of Dana's intelligence, Bill, but
you never trusted her to use it. You've never respected her
judgement. Why do you think she wouldn't tell you about the
cancer? Because she knew a scene like today's would happen."
Maggie sighed, and tried to get more comfortable in her seat.
"Fox respects her. And despite what you think, he genuinely
cares about her."
A sudden sharp note of anger entered her voice. "My God,
Bill, I've been watching this going on for four years - do you
honestly think I could have just stood by and said nothing if I
thought he didn't care what happened to her? I got to know him
when she went missing, and I watched it nearly destroy him. But
he never gave up hope, Bill, even when I did, and he never
stopped looking for her. So much for the man you say doesn't
care."
Silence. Maggie shut her eyes again, and hoped that was the
end of the matter.
But Bill still had something on his mind. "Anyone would
think he was her lover, not her work partner, the way she
follows him around and defends his crackpot behaviour," he said
eventually.
Maggie's hands, lying loosely in her lap, clenched into fists
for a moment. "Is that the point of this conversation after
all?" she enquired coolly.
He twitched defensively. "Well, is he?" he demanded.
"What difference does it make if he is?"
"It might explain some of her behaviour," he ground out,
"nauseous as the idea makes me feel."
"I think it's none of your damned business."
"That's not an answer to my question."
"Well if you want a better one, you'll have to ask Dana,"
Maggie said.
"You must have some idea," Bill persisted.
She gritted her teeth for a moment. "No, I don't think
they're involved," she said finally, "but I think that's only
because of circumstances and lack of opportunity."
Bill slowed down and drew the car to a halt outside his
mother's house. "Thank Christ for that," he muttered. "I don't
think I could stomach that sorry son of a bitch as a brother-in-
law."
Maggie fumbled her seatbelt undone and opened her door. Then
she paused and looked back at him, her expression contemptuous.
"We see ourselves reflected in others, Bill," she stated
grimly, and got out of the car, slamming the door behind her.
Finis